Our results suggest that precursors of this universal principle are active in the newborn brain. To address this question, we examine the sensitivity of newborn infants to a putatively universal linguistic principle that defines syllabic structure. However, whether those biological constraints are limited to sensorimotor restrictions on the production and perception of language, or whether they also include linguistic principles, remains controversial. It is well known that the design of human language is shaped by both cultural and biological constraints ( 1, 2). These findings suggest that humans possess early, experience-independent, linguistic biases concerning syllable structure that shape language perception and acquisition. Moreover, the oxyhemoglobin concentration changes elicited by a syllable type mirrored both the degree of its preference across languages and behavioral linguistic preferences documented experimentally in adulthood. Newborn infants (2–5 d old) listening to these three types of syllables displayed distinct hemodynamic responses in temporal-perisylvian areas of their left hemisphere. Across languages, syllables like blif are preferred to both lbif and bdif. To address this question, we used near-infrared spectroscopy to examine whether the brain activity of neonates is sensitive to a putatively universal phonological constraint. However, whether the design of the language faculty is further shaped by linguistic biological biases remains controversial. The evolution of human languages is driven both by primitive biases present in the human sensorimotor systems and by cultural transmission among speakers.
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